Obama Hits the Road to Sell Tax Hike

Republicans launch a tour of their own

Obama is taking to the "bully pulpit" to promote his fiscal cliff solution to ordinary Americans.

The President's plan is to speak directly to Americans and persuade them that they'll benefit from allowing taxes to increase for the wealthy. The strategy is quite different to his approach to the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations, when Obama just talked to lawmakers - and we know how well that turned out.

On Wednesday Obama will meet small business CEOs and families who'll be hard hit by the fiscal cliff, and on Friday he'll visit The Rodon Group factory in Hatfield, PA. Rodon make children's toys for K'NEX brands, including Tinkertoy and Angry Birds Building Sets.

Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, have slammed Obama's new "campaign-style approach to fiscal talks." They're claiming that Obama should spend his time bargaining with Republican lawmakers rather than messing about talking to voters.

But meanwhile other Republicans, led by John Boehner, are quietly plotting a fiscal cliff tour of their own. They intend to warn Americans that letting tax cuts expire on incomes over $200,000 - as Obama intends - will hit some small businesses very hard.

Yes and No. He'll definitely not be going to rich enclaves convincing rich people to pay more. Instead he'll be heading the scooby-doo ghost towns and high crime areas to convince poor people who think EBT cards are real money that rich people are the reason for their miserable poor lives. So, no to the rich people and yes to the poor. In either case, he'll get tax increases anyway.

Wiki numbers:"Percentage of people that make less than 50,000: less than $50k 70.95% Only around 11.2% make more than 75,000. "Doesn't seem like a fair distribution of weal....... 71% earing less than 50k do you really think that's a choice?

@martydotcom Life isn't fair. If you want better choices and opportunities, you make them for yourself by working for it. You have stumbled upon the crux of the problem in this country. There are no laws that require people to be poor. No one offers you a living except Democrats that encourage self-victimization and nanny-state dependents. And in order to make that work, the producer class must be forced to pay for the welfare gimmedats.

@RobertJHarsh Self-victimization does that include the only facility in my town where 3 generations of my family have made a middle class living until my employer took advantage of tax incentives and moved off shore. Not due to union issues the company had been profitable for more than 100 quarters, never a strike or even a threat of one. I've now taken advantage of gov retraining, but no jobs are available and due to the fact my unemployment has run out, I have lost my home and my car. my wife a teachers aid has lost her job too. I have no money to move or even to travel to find a job. I know you consider me sucking on the teat of the nanny state, but I'm 58 years old and no one wants to hire me. I've sent out over a 500 resumes please tell me how to rejoin the producers. I've never taken a dime in gov aid until 2yrs ago. Signed Mr. former middle class

A temporary tax cut is just that. Taxes arent being raised the rates will just go back to normal. We've put up with these cuts for too long, its time to head back to reality and quit pretending that they did anything but damage our economy.

@IMAQT never said destroying our country. Damaging our economy is what I said. I agree Washington is doing both. Taxpayers in all classes need to contribute, ending cuts wont solve the problem but it is one step in the right direction. The tax cuts have done nothing to benefit our economy if they had we wouldnt still have such sluggish growth and they have added substantially to our debt.

@tohickon "Taxpayers in all classes need to contribute," Including the 47% that pay zero income taxes yet are still eligible for refunds via refundable credits? You want to increase their income taxes? SO if you think that tax increases have not benefited our economy, you think a tax increase will benefit our economy?

@woodtick57 Take gasoline as an example when prices go up people still fill up their tank. They drive in a less wasteful way. Price increases are already a form of tax increase and americans have maintained their footing. Knowing tax rates on income are going to go up now will hopefully make people spend their income in a less wasteful way so they are prepared in April

Anyone making 200k or more shouldn't pay a cent in taxes this year . Tell Obama in there own way get your spending under control first before they send a dime in to the government . That's the only way there going to get the hint that taxing and spending is out of control in this country . 16 trillion in debt spending by the government then blames rich aren't paying enough sounds crazy because it is .

Would someone PLEASE tell this buffoon the difference between campaigning and GOVERNING.... I realize Axelshaft and Jarrett have no playbook for actually GOVERNING, but their boy is supposed to be smart. One would hope he would be smart enough to figure out the limitations of his puppeteers and give the crossbar to someone who has a slight clue as to which strings to pull to make him look the least bit lifelike.... Compromise means sitting down with others and LISTENING to what they have to say before WORKING TOGETHER to reach a workable solution... oh wait, that "WORK" word is involved and we already know Axelshaft's boy has never Worked,

More than likely, the people who believe like Obama are not the brightest humans on this planet. They are lazy and not bright. As I stated before, 69% of the people without a high school diploma, in Ohio, voted for Obama.

Well let's just cut to the chase shall we? Obama is wrong. 200,000.00 a year is not rich. But taxes on the rich has to go up. Since they're virtually NOTHING today. Split the difference. Raise taxes on those making over 500,000.00 a year to a flat 30% with no personal deductions whatsoever and be done with it.

Part of the problem is that we've allowed this guy and his ilk to change the definition of rich to mean anyone doing above average. Notice how they've managed to lower the standards of what rich means. Last campaign, it was millionaires and billionaires, then it morphed into $250k a year in the first four years until now it's over $200k a year. Watch out middle class, your the next contestant on "Get the Rich".....

i do not believe you should tax success, any differently than anyone else. nor do i believe that throwing more money, at our out of control spending government representatives is the solution. as we have been doing that for many decades, that has only resulted in their even overspending more.

just about all my life, i have head the governments promises to fix the budget with this or that tax increases. and they have never even tried, to live up to that promise. thier promises are no better, than any other organized crime syndicate. with the fraud of making red barn promises, they refuse to deliver on.

How come the same people who bash national retail chains (private employers of our local neighbors) also say we should send more money to Washington?? This hypocrisy has never been exposed by the media *for some reason*(maybe the same as not informing students about Obama's cuts to the Pell Grant)?

Does this Socialist do anything but running around the country spreading his class warfare and hatred towards the job creators? What a joke he is. How about staying in Congress and hammering out a deal for a change. He lives on the camera even the day after our Ambassador was killed.

I don't know if anyone has ever sat down a figured out how much in taxes you actually pay in a year. I'm talking state, local and federal. Taxes on fuel,property, everything including fee's for licensing. Last year 50.3% of every dollar I made went to some form of government. Enough is enough. I had to lay off two people just to meet my state tax burden. If I get hit by one more tax increase I'll be better of if I join the welfare rolls and the people I have left on payroll will have to join me there.

"Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, have slammed Obama's new "campaign-style approach to fiscal talks." They're claiming that Obama should spend his time bargaining with Republican lawmakers rather than messing about talking to voters."Wow! So McConnell thinks that the President talking directly to American citizens is "messing about." The thing is, Mitch; the majority of Americans are already in favor of your rich sugar daddies paying their fair share.

"They're claiming that Obama should spend his time bargaining with Republican lawmakers rather than messing about talking to voters." Yes, of course, heaven forbid that he should actually take the time and effort to educate people who may then (gasp!) call or write to their possibly Republican representatives and ask them to compromise, accommodate, and so forth. No, the GOP would much prefer that their constituents remain ignorant and let them continue doing what they want, which seems to be nothing.

The tax hike, fine, so that amounts to running the Fed Gov't for 8 days. Flying all over the country during the campaign, and flying all over the country to sell the tax hike idea probably pretty close to equal the money gained in a tax hike. But what ever floats your boat.

Yes, at least to 47% of the people, naturally they are for it, his tax plan only puts a band aid on the problem, it only puts the bleeding out of sight for a short time,( less than 9 days of government spending), what is the next step? More taxes again or just raise the debt ceiling more, he's already suggesting raising the ceiling,... Our poor kids!!! To me this is as bad as stealing your child's identify to get credit cards for yourself

well he just done four years as president. the american people just give him four more years. so he must be doing something right. i would say he is smarter than you or me. so lets just let him do his job.

@bsking if you cant see the good he has done try opening your eyes. so get you a big glass of kool-aid and enjoy you well be fine. i know obama won and everyone in america is worng but you..good luck with that..

I think the sale has already been made, the election showed that. I think raising top rates, limiting deductions to $50k, cutting military and domestic spending equally by $300 billion each, and we start to get the deficit under control.

One thing that needs to be said though is that no matter what road we go down, worrying about the deficit first will not help jobs, and in fact, may hurt it no matter what road we take.